Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Blackwolf @ the Oscars 2006, Part Three

After the next Best Picture Moment, the one and only Lauren Bacall came to the stage; despite losing her way through teleprompter land, as it were, she did a neat job, introducing the next package, which explored the realms of film noir (in glorious black and white, of course; Chuck Workman even designed it along the lines of a trailer for a film noir movie! Cool, huh?) At which point Jon returned to the stage for a look at Best Actress commercials (all of them fake, of course). Afterwards we came to the Best Documentary portion of the evening, with Terence Howard taking on Documentary Short Subjects; and Charlize Theron doing Documentary Feature. Short Subjects was first; Terence presented the Shorts Oscar to Eric Simonson and Corinne Marrinan for the look at radio legend Norman Corwin's V-E Day broadcast, "On a Note of Triumph."

A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin was another adventure destined for HBO (Man, that Sheila Nevins is one busy lady, isn't she? I need to get in touch with her, too; someone's got to find out about my long-planned Blackwolf the Dragonmaster's First Movie!); and while Eric thanked the HBO folks, Corinne thanked the Academy for "seating me next to George Clooney at the Nominees' Luncheon." Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody drool over George. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Now, 'twas Charlize's turn to host the Documentary portion; this time, as noted, the focus was on Documentary Features; and of course, there was no denying which documentary feature would win the night: while Luc Jacquet and Yves Darondeau steeped up to the mic to salute their many penguin admirers, March of the Penguins' host, the aforementioned Morgan Freeman, was briefly seen doing a shocked double-take. Luc and Yves dedicated their Oscar to all the kids who had flocked to see their little movie; "in 2041," they predicted, "they will decide to ruin you or not, the treaty that protects Antartica." Hopefully, it won't come to that. There was a break in the presenting now, as J.Lo came forth to introduce Kathleen (Bird) York, who would sing her own song, "In the Deep," from the evening's eventual big winner, Crash. Then, in a reunion of the adventurous duo from Speed, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock presented the award for Art Direction/Set Decoration.

John Myhre, Memoirs of a Geisha's Production Designer, showed up alone, to read a message from Set Decorator Gretchen Rau:

"Gretchen thanks all with whom she has collaborated, both in her film career and in her life. She loves you all." Presumably, Milady Gretchen was a bit under the weather; do get well soon, dear lady!

Samuel L. Jackson had the honor of hosting the next Chuck Workman package, this one on message movies and movies about the battle of the sexes ("During that montage," Jon Stewart was quick to comment, "Susan Sarandon mailed us a check!"). Then, of course, Jerry Goldsmith's Fanfare for Oscar kicked in, as the newly-elected Academy President, Sid Ganis, entered center stage to say a few words about storytelling. In particular, he paid tribute to the fact that there were now six films being shot in and around the New Orleans area --- and all those responsible should be honored, Sid believed. I quite agree.

Well, Salma Hayek was next to take the Kodak Theatre stage, to introduce Itzhak Perlman, whose fiddling would help out Bill Conti and the Oscar orchestra (this was Bill's 18th year at the podium! Aargh!) as they guided us through the nominees for Best Original Score. Gustavo Santaolalla's epic themes for Brokeback Mountain were the designated winner. Brokeback, Gustavo commented, showed the world that "Love is what makes us all very similar, in spite [of the fact that] we can be so different. Para todas Latinos, muchas gracias, thank you." Jon, meanwhile, wondered if Maestro Perlman was finger-synching; hey, at least Itzhak got a better segment than his pal Yo-Yo Ma did last year!